SkyknightXi's page

First of all, the "if needed" is a nod to whether a Druid with Ranger archetype or vice versa fits the bill. Of course, that doesn't quite allow for the original's animal foci.

If we decide we do need a formal 2e Hunter, I'm wondering whether a class archetype (like how Inquisitor was vectored in as the Vindicator archetype for the Ranger) would be ideal--obviously for Druid or Ranger--as opposed to its own class. I'm also curious how crucial the animal companion might be said to be, on account of the Forester archetype for the Hunter in 1e. It's mostly my noticing that cramming in all of spontaneous druid/hunter spells, animal foci, and animal companion for a class archetype is going to be Sticky.

One idea I have for the archetype setup is that Hunters, if Ranger-basis, can add a small number of primal spells to their focus spell pool. Alternatively, they could gain limited spontaneous primal casting in a fashion similar to the Eldritch Archer. Druid-basis...being trained in martial weapons, not just simple, would obviously be necessary, but would they have to be in the animal order, or can animal foci have a place among the elemental orders?

So that leaves the question of how to bring in the foci. I'm thinking of them as a memorized repertoire. Start with five different foci, add another focus every four levels? There's a ready index at https://aonprd.com/HunterAnimalFocus.aspx , if you want a sense/reminder of what gets improved by any one focus.

Meanwhile, any expectations of a remaster of this one like with Guns and Gears? Although I can imagine any necessary tinkering with Eidolons would take some time.

Mostly interested for Magi, mind. Maybe we can get a dual-wielding-focused hybrid study in the process. >>;

Very close to 60% now.

Exactly. The amounts are in Canadian dollars, since that's what they'll need to calculate taxes in. The confusion may stem from how the stretch goals DON'T have a USD equivalent listed (look at my last post in this thread to see those).

On a side note, them getting double the baseline will be enough to get us up to the Ratfolk and expanded crafting echelons.

Important: The stretch points are NOT given a United States dollar equivalent right now. Allow me to remedy that so those south of the Canadian border can get a better image.

Bounder Minigame: $378,288 (I'm rounding up each time to be safe; another $5,934 after baseline)
Player House: $415,375
Multiclassing: $452,462
Tengu: $508,092
Temple of the Dark Tapestry: $600,810
Intelligent items: $619,353
Animal companion visual change: $656,410
Ratfolk: $712,071
Expanded crafting: $804,788
Firestorms of Wildwood: $916,049
Factions: $934,593
Hardcore enemy strategy setting: $971,680
Master's Form: $1,027,310
Relics: $1,064,397
Catfolk: $1,120,028
Party tactics fine-tuning: $1,194,202
Pirates of the Verduran Fork: $1,324,006

Now that I remember it, would the expansion packs increase the level cap? (I think I'm mostly interested in rank 5 spells--like Freezing Rain.)

EDIT: Just shy of 45% of baseline target. Now I just have to fish out graphs of how much was pledged when for Kingmaker and WotR...

(Would have edited the last one, but I seem to have missed the opportunity window.)

Also, no Leshys...? I get that such would interfere with romances for that run, but we can probably make do (and I'd actively prefer...) if we could also play matchmaker with companions.

If you somehow get past the Verduran Fork tier, any chance for the Kineticist to be vectored in? >>; Rage of Elements did come out AFTER Paizo cobbled together ORC...

It's worth noting that in D&D 1e, Bard was a VERY advanced class by default, much like the Monk. (I don't remember whether the Assassin was likewise, even if having too low a starting Charisma score locked you into that. Especially irksome when you consider that Assassins had to be evil-aligned.) In fact, the Bard and Monk were expressly optional classes for any given campaign. The Bard was even basically a prestige class.

Step one: Human/half-elven fighter, 15 STR/DEX/WIS/CHA, 12 INT, 10 CON.
Step two: Get to level 5-7, then switch to thief.
Step three: Get to level 5-9, then switch to bard proper, which adds druid capabilities (spellcasting included), entrancing music, and built-in legend lore abilities.

I wonder how much the original Bard's Tale CRPG convinced TSR to make the Bard far more readily accessible. Even if neither the Monk nor Half-Orcs were available in the 2e Players' Handbook.

My girlfriend says there aren't enough syllables. I would like to amend my suggestion to the esotericismist.

The other classes do fine with fewer syllables. It's the same number of syllables as Kineticist, at that. (What?)

Or maybe Evoker? Invoker's swallowed up for Flexible Spellcasting witches, but in the sense of using esoterica to evoke particular effects???

As Monk goes, I'm not sure what to do. "Martialist" is a little too close to more typical physicals for my liking. "Virtuoso" is the best I have at the moment...

Esoterician? Not Occultist? {teleports to safety}

As to Druid, I was also thinking of Warden for an alternate name. One part D&D 4e's Warden (which was more like our Forester, mind), two parts Everquest II's Warden (the yin Druid to the Fury's yang Druid in there).

And on a more humorous note, "Vindicate" and "Avenge" are roughly the same thing, as they're ultimately both derived from the Latin "vindex". "Avenge" just went through Old French as well.

I really like the term "benefactor" for the kobolds' power source. It's nice and neutral; a benefactor might be a master or an ally, or even an enemy, a prisoner, an unwitting host.

On that note, I didn't take long to think of the adsorptive properties of kobold eggs in Player Core 2 as being a magical extrapolation of real-world reptilian ectothermy (i.e. drawing in more ambient things than heat). Wonder if the iruxi are raising their eyebrows about that.

Granted you're also talking to someone who entertains the idea of halflings being at baseline low-echelon, unconscious psychics, courtesy the description of the Psychic feat Foreseen Failure (i.e. my explanation of choice for Halfling Luck is in its vein--subconscious sense of causality being Unpleasant soon, and equally subconscious psychokinetic nudge to make causality less Unpleasant). So you might need some salt. But I found it also makes the halflings' own Support Race culture less onerous--that unconscious psychic sense makes them driven to becalm others if only to lessen their own stress. Not so much Servant Race as Therapist Race???

I know my own Thaumaturge idea is a half-elven denizen of Tian Xia (Tian Xia mostly to explain why she'd have ready access to a jiu huan dao) who works with the occult equivalent of waveform interference. Her first implement is a literal bell--one more akin to bells associated with feng shui than any other type, with groove-pockets on the exterior to fit esoterica in. Ringing the bell is HOW she presents the esoterica, whether or not it's the special reaction--the qualities of the esoterica (one primary and one or two secondary) interact through constructive and destructive interference in the midst of the bell's soundwaves to produce the effect she's looking to visit on her foe. (Hence the jiu huan dao that would ultimately be her second implement--it's the only weapon I could find that I could readily associate with sound. >>;;;; )

As you might have guessed, adventuring with her would be a...noisy...affair when a fight breaks out. (Well, noisier than usual.)

Although I am excited to see the archetypes, as a huge fan of playing a Bloodrager in WotR, I can't help but be a bit sad for the new Bloodrager.

I guess we are no longer channeling our sorcerous might into fueling our rage and sparking new abilities.

The new Bloodrager has some cool ideas and abilities, but I will miss the old Bloodrager. RIP buddy.

It is true that this means the Incredible Hulk would no longer quite be a Bloodrager (Daemon bloodline, I presume). That's basically how I myself understood Bloodragers--their blood trace sometimes takes over when that blood power is needed...

(Now we need a post-Player Core port, I suppose, of Stand Us--sorry, Summoners.)

Oh yes, THAT issue...{sigh} Paizo: Cleaving to social justice precepts in spite of its founders' "best" efforts.

(I think of myself as a Social Justice Invoker. D&D 4e sense, not 2e/3e/5e sense.)

I wonder if we could use this metric to reiterate Hunter for 2e, whether as a class archetype for Ranger, Druid, or Magus. (Of course, you'll want to fully port Magus into post-Player Core first...) I know nothing of the 1e Hunter Iconic, mind, but I wonder if you could extrapolate the Animal Focus feature into generally channeling primal/natural force. If a Magus class archetype, into the weapon is also a possibility. (Or even through the companion, a la 1e Shaman???) At least SOMETHING to start with, I suppose.

And here I thought the Ranger choice was mostly from 1e Inquisitors starting with bow proficiencies...

I know I'm a little more aware of the Inquisitions not being just the Iberian nightmares--notably the French Inquisitions. And understanding that the term "inquisitor" MEANS "investigator". (Same root as "inquire" and "inquisitive".) Of course, the French Inquisitions were no fun for the Albigensians, despite them being much more restrained about torture (they even appropriated the right of torture to themselves as a way to keep torture from being used with any frequency at all, by appealing to papal authority! Then came Torquemada...).

I'd PROBABLY just jettison the term "inquisitor" outright, though. "Vindicator" and "vindictive" share etymology too, after all, but neither one has "inquisitor"'s Stickiness.

Meanwhile...magus variants for the other three traditions. Optionally with their own conflux styles. Stat. Your pick on prepared or spontaneous spells. Hunter is obviously up for the primal variant.

Seneschals essentially ran the castle's/keep's day-to-day activities whenever the liege wasn't in a position to do so, which would DEFINITELY be the case if said liege was leading or assisting a campaign.

So Champion is definitely a strong contender, even if the Seneschal title is more metaphorical. The other possibilities to me are, oddly enough, Alchemist and Wizard in particularly support-oriented ways, and Sorcerer for particular arbitration with their more unalloyed bloodline kin.

Out of curiosity, do we know the remaining two class archetypes? I'm not sure how many, if any, would be reinstatements of thus-far-unimplemented 1e classes (remember that Avenger = Slayer and Vindicator = Inquisitor). But I am looking at the remaining formal classes from 1e...

--Arcanist: Possible Wizard class archetype.
--Brawler: Possible Fighter class archetype (qi spells won't be a good fit for the theme, so not Monk), assuming the Martial Artist general archetype isn't filling in.
--Cavalier: N/A. Now an archetype available to multiple classes.
--Hunter: Much as this is probably my favorite 1e class, I'm not expecting it, as I'd sooner expect this to be Ranger-requiring than Druid, and I think it's unlikely any class will get more than one archetype in here.
--Medium and Shaman: I'm pretty sure the Animist is the 2e form of the Shaman with a measure of Medium.
--Shifter: I feel like this should be a normal archetype? Otherwise, a druid class archetype seems the best fit.
--Skald: Obviously would be a Bard class archetype--and honestly feels like a good thematic complement to the Exemplar.
--Spiritualist: This definitely seems to be best off as a Summoner class archetype. Now whether it treads too closely to the Animist's conceits to be in this particular book...
--Vigilante: N/A. Now an archetype available to multiple classes.

So my own suspicions if there are no completely original class archetypes for the remaining two slots are Skald (Exemplar complement) and Arcanist (we'd be without strict spellcaster archetypes otherwise, and I'm not sure the Bard counts as strict).

Something comes to mind. If the Bloodrager's conceit is similar enough to the 1e version (i.e. melee variants of Sorcerer bloodlines), then we'll probably have what we need to cobble up Eldritch Scions. Mind you, the big draw on my end is in large part "Magus with the primal spell list, rather than arcane".

EDIT: Meanwhile, at least in terms of concepts, the Animist sounds like a 2e take on 1e's Shaman, just without using a Siberia-specific term. >>; I wouldn't know where to look for playtester information, even if a case can be made that 2e's Investigator (for example) doesn't have that much in common with the 1e Investigator.

Of *course* I would have liked Xiangliu to keep their name. -.- And I swear they were manipulating Gonggong the whole time...(See also: My hypothesis that the true villain of the Enuma Elish isn't Apsu, Tiamat, Marduk, or even Anshar, but Qingu, seeking from the onset to get the Tablets of Destiny for himself.)

Still, I look forward to seeing how the nations are detailed. Along with where gnomes are a notable presence. I have Ideas for a Tian Xia thaumaturge...

(Okay, it's mostly because the thaumaturge idea is sound-based, and the jiuhuandao has enough association with sound.)

Just to be sure, no new classes? If only because this would have been the perfect opportunity to formally reinstate the Hunter.

Although Inquisitor is probably higher priority...

I know I get leery when people speak as though they want "mature content" (as you'll see, I'm mostly looking at var. Willfully Edgy and var. Shock Value) for its own sake, rather than a means to an end. I suppose one way to put it is if an emphatically-not-All-Ages scenario involves agents of Zepar, it may want to avoid being too visceral anyway, and instead focus some energy on balming the agents' "incubators" and experimental subjects and helping them back on their feet, especially in downtime mode.

Mostly being a touch worried about PF 1.0's earliest early days, where (and mind any straw that crept in) the heads were determined to be darker than D&D ever had been. Which to me sounds like darker than even Dark Sun. Fortunately the employees had a very high Social Justice Paladin index, from the sounds of things. (Yes, I do think Social Justice _class_ should be seen as a thing of honor, why do you ask?)

What WOULD we do for more fighty foes, anyway? Elementals sound like a good go-to for this, seeing how they're not exactly the most visceral things in existence. (Just be careful of what metal elementals might do to limbs, for instance. So mostly air and water elementals...?)

I realize a lot of it is momentum from D&D, but the depiction of the banshee (bean sidhe if you want to be stick to Gaelic spelling) is definitely a bit off. With my luck, a holdover from Gygax's own philosophical slants about mortality in general. Still, assuming the morrigna isn't somehow holding it (mostly because of the phonetic similarity to Morrigan), I wonder if there's a place for a non-malicious banshee-equivalent that's truer to the Gaelic original. Fortunately, there's a name of a similar entity to the bean sidhe still untaken according to the Archives of Nethys--caoineag, the Scottish equivalent. (There's also the testier caointeach of Islay, who isn't above hobbling those who try to stop her warnings.) The fun bit will be paralleling caoineags and banshees that establishes a subtle, but extremely important, distinction in how they come about, if desired.